rdclark

Hi, I'm new here.

The bad news: Thursday evening, while driving our '96 Caravan in Philly, my wife was hit from the side by a driver who ignored a stop sign, never slowed down, and spun the Dodge 90 degrees and 30 feet across the road. He then got out of his car on its passenger side and ran away. We've heard nothing from the police about the driver yet.

The best news: Miraculously, she was not seriously injured. She has some really psychedelic bruising down her side from the seat belt, but nothing broken. She was cleared by the ER.

The almost-as-good-as-that news: Friday evening we reserved a 2005 Blue Onyx Pearl Xb with AT that should be arriving in about 2 weeks. I've been lusting after the Xb since it was introduced, but couldn't quite justify dumping the Caravan, which was in good condition, despite how deeply I loathed and despised it.

But the Caravan is totaled, and the insurance check will make a nice down payment.

I'm very excited. Our primary vehicle is a 2002 Mazda MPV, which I love. It's a great car for nearly every application from long trips to daily errands; it's fun to drive, easy to park, gets good gas mileage for a minivan, and is very well built. But we need two cars.

The Xb is the most perfect "second car" for suburban dwellers who commute into cities. You all know why. So, while I'd prefer it had happened a different way, I'm at least grateful that something good will come from the nasty situation my wife lived through last week.

It would have been nice to wait for a 2006 -- the dealer said they'd be arriving around the end of July -- but we need something sooner. We always keep cars until they're not worth repairing anyway, so the loss of resale value isn't an issue for us. I can live without an aux input and an iPod dock on the stereo.

So I'm pumped, and I look forward to keeping up with other owners of this wonderful, innovative vehicle.

Cheers,
RichC

KingofQueens23

Glad to hear that the Wife is OK!
Welcome to SL!

marcs_xb

Welcome to Scion Life and the Blue Onyx Cult!!! Glad your wife's OK. Here's mine:

Mine's getting dropped in a week or so. Any mods planned for yours?

rdclark

Modding is not the reason we wanted the car; it's the utility, economy, and the chairlike seating position (the Xb is the cheapest car on the market with this sort of easy ingress/egress).

I happen to like the way it looks, too. My favorite car growing up was the Volkswagen Bus (I'm giving away my agem here)), and I think the Xb lives in the same sort of niche that the Bus did back in the 60s.

All that said, we'll probably do a few very tame things like add an armrest and a cargo cover. But no exterior graphics or LEDs or performance enhancements.

RichC